That is the classic example that I expected someone to point out. Newspapers (and magazines) differ from other consumables in that after having consumed ONE, the consumer has no utility for additional units. So the motivation to take more than one is negligible for the vast majority of consumers. A beverage dispenser -- or any kind of food dispenser -- provides something that the consumer KNOWS he will want more of later. So the temptation to take more than the one that was paid for is considerable.

I also have this complaint for the Eat-'O-Matic. Some vendors pre-2077 were far too trusting.

people were a lot more honest in the 50's.

Nah, if you try to take more than what you paid for the machine has a piston-thing that shoots out and punches you in the d**k.

It's more realistic, when considering how true it is to the atomic age aesthetic of commercial machinery at the time. For me though, little of the changes they have made with nuka cola have been satisfying.

-You shouldn't expect any cola to be left in the machines 210 years later, which 4 actually gets right. But 3 and NV got me used to this, considering they only take place up to 10 years earlier. I just give the machines very little thought now.

-On the other hand, it's a lawless wasteland. Why can't I just pick or smash the whole thing open? In this way the little door makes little gameplay sense and is just a short-lived, charming gimmick during gameplay.

-The new vending machines are only a part of a bigger source of disappointment. Nuka Cola just isn't as viable as an early-game source of healing anymore. They're not as abundant, they heal comparably less to the previous games and the radiation penalty works in much more specific increments than before.

Therefore I give very little thought to the funny little parody franchise than I did in earlier games. I don't even like the rocket bottle retcon. It doesn't make me thirsty for real coca cola like before.

Oddly enough, despite the fact that the '50s had come and gone more than a century before 2077, this is most likely THE explanation. Despite the fact that the US government had become a Big Brother-like totalitarian institution, McCarthyism was almost rabidly omnipresent, and large corporations routinely polluted the Environment and killed large numbers of their own customers with unsafe products.